UN to produce bullion coins as world currency

The announcement by the United Nationsthis week that it will license the minting of silver and gold bullion coins bearing the UN logo may be the button that launches metal prices into orbit.

[efoods]In its wide-ranging report this fall, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stated that the system of currencies and international banking practices within today’s economies were inadequate, and responsible for the present economic crisis. The report advocates that the present monetary system, wherein the dollar acts as the global reserve currency be re-examined “with urgency”.

The UNCTAD Report was the first time a major multinational institution had forwarded such a suggestion or measure, although a number of countries, including Russia and Brazil have supported replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. China’s central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan has mentioned that the dollar could become a basket of currencies instead.

The UN commission dismissed such a widening, saying a multiple-country system “may be equally unstable, and not transparent.”